Help with dissertations & research projects

We have several books in the library that provide expert help and advice with business research projects or dissertations:

“Researching and Writing Dissertations in Business and Management” by Riley

 

 

 

“Designing and Managing a Research Project: a business student’s guide” by Polonsky & Waller

 

 

 

 

“Management Research” by Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson

 

 

 

“Essentials of Business Research: a guide to doing your research project” by Wilson

 

 

 

As well as covering the entire process of starting and completing a research project, these books also mention the value of using your librarians! From Riley (2000, p.63):

Sadly, many students (and some academic staff!) rarely familiarize themselves to any extent with the facilities of their library and are thus deprived of knowledge relating to the full range of available information

and from Polonsky & Waller (2011, p.123)

We strongly encourage you to go to your university library and talk with a reference librarian regarding the data sources your university has and the training related to searching these databases and/or reference management systems provided. You will be amazed how happy librarians are to help you learn how to search for information. They will, however, be less helpful if you simply expect them to do your work. The library and librarians are a critical resource that all too many students do not avail themselves of. While you can get a lot of materials from the Internet and alternative data sources, librarians have expertise in searching for information so getting support from them is similar to getting support from the literature. It can save time reinventing the wheel!

and from Wilson (2010, p.66)

your academic library will have information specialists who are there to guide you in your net searches. Make sure you can tell them just what it is that you are seeking, and be prepared to listen to their advice 

The School of Management can be contacted via buslib@swansea.ac.uk for one to one appointments for research projects. We also teach literature searching classes on many programs and are running business information seminars this term.

Business and Economics Information Seminar Series

A series of drop-in seminars will be taking place this term for School of Management students:

“Using E-Books” – Fri 28th Feb 12-12.30pm
You can access over 100,000 ebooks however you want, where you want, when you want –  all provided by your library.  It’s easy to find an ebook online when you have the link in Blackboard.   It can be more difficult if you want to download or print.  This session will explain what you can and can’t do with ebooks available from Swansea University’s three main providers:  Dawsonera, Ebrary and EBSCO, each is slightly different.

“Finding Journal Articles” – Fri 7th Mar, 1-2pm
‘Independent research through the reading of academic journals’ is encouraged in many School of Management modules and often gains you valuable marks in assignments – it is also essential for any kind of literature review! Bring your assignment topics and get a head start with time-saving tips and expert advice on finding and accessing academic journal articles.

“Market Research Information” – Tue 11th Mar, 12-1pm
Mintel Oxygen and Mintel Global Market navigator are top quality resources for the latest trends on consumer behaviour, preferences and trends.  MR reports cost £100s on the “open” web so make sure you’re familiar with the resources that the Library provides for YOU free of charge.

“APA Referencing (for School of Management)” – Thur 13th Mar, 12-1pm
We will show you how to cite and create a reference list using the rules of APA referencing style focussing on more unusual document types.

“News Sources” – Wed 19th Mar, 12-12.45pm
The internet is full of rumours, bias, opinion and half-truths – find out how to access quality news articles from dependable sources around the world so that your assignment is up to date, such as the International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Economist, Le Monde, Die Welt and others.

“Finding and using business reports” – Thur 27th Mar, 1-2pm
Good business reports can provide invaluable information for research and assignments. In this session we will highlight the quality reports in our business databases (e.g. Company reports with SWOT and competitor analysis, Country profiles, commodity reports). We will also look at finding and evaluating reports on the web.

“Company, financial and economic data sources” – Mon 31st Mar, 12-1pm
We’ll look at databases such as FAME, Bankscope, Datastream and the UK Data Service.

All sessions will take place in the library Training Room 3 – no booking is required, just turn up. The sessions are suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. If you cannot make the session we will be posting materials on the blog after each class.

For more information or queries, contact buslib@swansea.ac.uk.

PDF Poster (English) / PDF Poster (Welsh)

Vlearn – curated video content for business and management students

Following on from the videos with business leaders we blogged about last week, there is another great collection of videos on the Vlearn website. They are curating web content and state their purpose as:

We consolidate the best content on the web and develop our own original content to help inspire tomorrows leaders and entrepreneurs to take the baton and help deliver a cleaner, fairer, more efficient global economy for all

They have categories for Marketing, Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship and many more. Videos include Christine Lagarde, Paul Krugman, Bill Gates and many more big names. You can also use the search box (top right) to search by keyword or name. 

APA Referencing Tip: including author initials in in-text citations

This came up recently when we couldn’t work out why the extremely handy EndNote “cite as you write” word plugin was seemingly making mistakes in its in-text citations for one author and including an initial where we weren’t expecting it. The answer was: there were several authors with the same surname…

In the APA 6th style used by the School of Management citations within the main body of an essay or document normally have the format surname + year e.g. (Gentile, 2010). However, there are occasions when it is correct to include the initials of an author – see this blog post from the APA Style blog which explains how and why.

Video Interviews with top business leaders

Our Careers Service has publicised some video resources that may be of interest to business students: “10 minutes with business leaders“.

“10 Minutes With is an educational platform where you learn about the roles, responsibilities and skills required for the top business positions globally.  It includes interviews with senior executives and professionals across various business fields asking them to explain their roles and day-to-day activities.”

 

To access the videos you will first need to create an account here:

https://www.10minuteswith.com/user/register#.UuqH0j1_uSq

If you enter your Swansea University email address, you should find you are authorised to create a user account. Then you will need to look for the email they send in order to confirm the account before accessing the site.

See Jo’s blog post for examples of the business leaders they have interviewed!

Business Skills – Online Books Available from Access Engineering

Swansea University now has access to 20 new books on business skills from Access Engineering.  There is also a curriculum map on the topic of quality control and a videos on the presentation techniques of Steve Jobs.

Browsing for top journal articles with Google Scholar

Google Scholar has a handy feature that allows you to browse the top ranking journals and articles for your topic. Click on “Metrics” from the Google Scholar home page :

Click on “Business, Economics & Management” (which displays the top journals for the entire subject area) then click on “Subcategories” to drill down to more detailed topics:

(Click to enlarge this screenshot!)

If you select, for example, Marketing you get the top 20 highest ranked journals (according to Google’s algorithm). If you click on the number shown in the “h5-index” column, you then get to see the highest ranked articles for that journal i.e. those that seem to be most influential judging from their number of subsequent citations in other articles.

We also have a subscription to Journal Citation Reports by Thomson Reuters which provide an alternate journal ranking but these do not have such a quick link to the top articles.